Online Accounting Software for Restaurants

As a restaurant owner you know that perfection is everything. Furthermore, in the constant rush it is virtually impossible to pay attention to several things at once, especially at accounting. You have probably wished for a miracle solution that could make accounting easier so you have nothing to do just manage the restaurant and satisfy your customers. There isn’t a miracle solution that will do away with accounting just like that, but there is one that will at least make it less painful: online accounting software.

Such software really is your virtual assistant: it handles everything from expense management, invoices, bills, keeps track of your incomes and expenses, prepares reports for tax purposes, updates your inventory, logs the work time of your employees and can even handle data imported from other software you have been using before.

Features

Accounting software is full of useful features, like the following:

Dashboard – All Data at a Glance

The main page of every online accounting solution contains a dashboard, which displays all kinds of key numbers and figures of your business. Just take a glance at this dashboard and you will see your cashflow (your incomes and expenses), your banking, which vendors you owe money, and even the current state of your inventory.

Inventory

The inventory is a crucial part of your software because you can keep track of the items you are selling, or in your case dishes and beverages. Moreover, some accounting solutions can display the profitability of the items, so you can see which one is your top selling product.

Expenses

An online accounting solution can track any expense you enter into the software. With the help of your mobile app, which comes as a companion to the online software, you can snap a photo of a receipt and it will be processed within moments. Furthermore, the software can organize different types of expenses once they “learn” how to do that, thus saving more time and, of course, money.

Banking

Upload a bank statement or connect your bank account with your accounting software and all your transaction will appear therein in real time completely organized.

Reports

Creating reports is not a chore anymore: just keep recording your expenses, issue invoices, update your inventory and the software will automatically create all the necessary reports you need when tax time comes. Furthermore, if you give limited access to your accountant he/she can work on those reports while you are managing your business.

Payroll

This feature allows your employees to record their own work time and the software will calculate their salaries which you can pay them by check, or by direct deposit. Moreover, this feature also prepares your 1099s which you can print and send to the tax agency.

Integrating Other Software and Services

If you have a perfectly functional solution with all of your company’s data in one place, why not make further use of this? Online accounting companies know this, thus they usually offer and support an API, meaning that hundreds of third-party applications can be integrated into their accounting solution. CRMs, inventory management software, expense reporting tools, invoicing solutions, POS, time tracking, payroll and even e-commerce; it doesn’t matter which one you pick, your new accounting solution will auto-import your data from these other tools so you can combine the strengths of both.

There are tons of services to be integrated into an accounting solution, so we are going to name just a few: like Square with which you can collect payments with ease and deposit them fast. Or Vend which tracks your sales and inventory history, plus shows the status of your shipments. ClickPOS is equipped with multi-chain store retail store functionality, CRM and even supplier catalogues. And the list could go on with CRMs like Capsule CRM, Insightly, expense reporting tools like Receipt Bank, Expensify, and Abacus, payroll software like Gusto and SurePayroll, and such well known solutions like PayPal and Google Apps.

Online Accounting Solutions Recommended for You

The online accounting market is full of good solutions, so picking the winner is up to you. But before you make your decision, let us recommend you two choices for restaurant businesses: FreshBooks and Xero.

FreshBooks

This software is a good choice whether you just commenced your business activities or you are already a pro. FreshBooks has all the major features a restaurant owner needs: a user-friendly software with an easily understandable dashboard, expense tracking, the option to connect your bank accounts with the software, automatically generated business reports and a super simple inventory. Unlike many of its competitors, FreshBooks lets you use every single feature in the stellar iOS and Android application, with the exception of reports. 40 different third-party apps can be integrated into the software which seems very few, but the most important and useful software and services for ecommerce, CRM, fast payment etc. are all available for integration. FreshBooks has four pricing plans, with the only difference between them being the number of clients you can have. You also get a 30-day free trial and an always prepared customer service.

Xero

Thanks to the two-step authentication, Xero is one of the safest cloud-based accounting software of the market available both from your desktop or from the iOS and Android app. Aside from invoicing, estimating, and expense management you get such extras like an inventory, a payroll – which usually has to be subscribed to – and even an option to prepare and print your 1099s. If you need an extra solution, you can integrate over 400 apps, including the ones listed above. Other features of Xero include three pricing plans, a 24/7 customer service and a 30-day free trial of the top product.